Story Highlights

The director of Lincoln County’s road department would like to increase the number of road districts in the county from six to seven, but he’s having a tough time attracting qualified applicants for the positions of heavy equipment operators.

Three of his “operator 3” employees graduated to a higher grade and he needs to fill the vacant positions.

“So if you plan on having seven blades and advertised, but there was no outside interest or applicants, do you have any concerns?” Commission Chairman Preston Stone asked Road Superintendent Joel Bonnell at the commission meeting late last month.

“Yes I do,” he replied. “The biggest thing is the low hourly pay. We have good benefits, but for people needing to pay bills, it just doesn’t seem like we pay enough to pay their bills and work for us. Most contractors don’t have as good benefits, but pay more. But a lot of times contractors also are seasonal,” while the county offers year-round jobs.

An entry level Operator 3 is paid $14.12 an hour and after six months is increased to $14.82 an hour.

County Manager Nita Taylor said the operators have their own districts in which they are responsible not just to repair roads, but also for communicating to the clients they serve, understanding their needs and telling them what can and cannot be done. They also must pass written and physical tests to ensure they have the necessary skills, she said.

In another road issue, Commissioner Tom Stewart brought up a new utility cut he spotted in a clean pavement.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fought contractors about cutting roads,” Stewart said. “One appeared this week. I was jarred on it on High Mesa between 701 and 703. It was cut from the side and already depressed. We spend a lot of money to maintain these roads and to have a contractor or whoever come in…Was that permitted?”

Bonnell said County Attorney Alan Morel contacted him about the cut and he could not find any permit issued for the work. “My foreman asked around and apparently, it was the gas company,” he said. “I’m not sure if it was an emergency cut or just a regular cut. They ran out of patching material.”

Morel said if no permit was issued, the company can be cited for a violation.

Noting that another cut was repaired within the last month and the patch already is failing, Stewart said, “Please do cite them.”

Commissioner Dallas Draper then asked who is responsible for repairing potholes on Bonito Lake Road.

“It’s one of those things. We’re not sure who is responsible for it,” Bonnell said. “The county in the past has maintained part of the road, although it belongs to Alamogordo. We have repaired potholes in the past. I told (an Alamogordo official) if the county is going to maintain it, we want to pull up the half inch of asphalt. I don’t see why we should spend a lot of money on an asphalt road when they are hauling heavy material out of the lake. He said he would send up a crew to patch up those potholes.”

Commissioner Lynn Willard said he drove the newly surfaced Cora Dutton Road and it wasn’t very smooth.

“I understand we had an engineer who signed off on it,” he said.

Bonnell said the bumpiness largely was his fault, because to save money he used a county crew to prepare the road for the oil and chip seal surface. The contractor was coming in on a Monday and over the weekend, the road became “washboardy.” He sent someone to blade it, but in retrospect, if he had enough money, he should have paid the contractor to prepare the road, he said.